Dunstable is a historic market town in the county of Bedfordshire. It lies on the eastward tail spurs of the Chiltern Hills. These form several steep chalk escarpments most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the north. Before the Local Government Act 1972 coming into force in 1974 Dunstable was a municipal borough. It is now a civil parish in the South Bedfordshire district. History Dunstable lies on a crossroads of the ancient Roman road of Watling Street, which is the modern A5 trunk road, and the even older Icknield Way. In Roman times its name was Durocobrivis. There was a general assumption that the nominative form of the name had been Durocobrivae, so that is what appears on the map of 1944 illustrated above. But current thinking is that the form Durocobrivis, which occurs in the Antonine Itinerary, is a fossilised locative that was used all the time (A. L. F. Rivet